connections

07/082014

Watch Chris Crummey at Social Connections VI: ‘Understanding the journey of becoming a Social Business’

News community, connections, event, ibmchampions, ibmcnx, ics, inotes, oliheinz, prague, soccnx, vi, video by Lars Samuelsson

For the first time at Social Connections VI, we recorded every single session in glorious HD video – opening and closing sessions, keynotes, breakouts and even our ‘Pardon the Interruption’ panel. This was a huge (and expensive) undertaking but one that we think will be massively valuable in terms of increasing the volume of IBM Connections information and education available to the community.

Next to be highlighted is a session from our Management track delivered by Chris Crummey of IBM. Chris is the Executive Director of Sales For Social Business at IBM. With 25 years as an IBMer, he will be able to provide a LOB perspective on the value of a culture of a “Social Business”.

His session brief was as follows:

This session will focus on the the major milestones and journey of IBM as a “Social Business. We will present a combination of “Day in the Life” examples followed by an overview of the major milestones achieved by IBM. This session will focus on the process, culture, and IT programs designed to successfully deploy an “Social Business.”

Here’s the session – it’s in full HD and clocking in at over 45 minutes, so make it full screen and enjoy!

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/102117447[/vimeo]

Understanding the journey of becoming a Social Business, Chris Crummey from the Social Connections VI channel, by Social Connections.

All the main tent sessions from the first day of Social Connections VI are now available on the event channel, and the remainder of the sessions will be published over the next few weeks (that’s the downside of HD-quality recordings – they take a while to upload!).

06/082014

Watch Adam Brown at Social Connections VI: ‘Make your Connections Activities Rock!!! introducing Kudos Boards for IBM Connections’

News community, connections, event, ibmcnx, ics, isw, kudos, kudosbadges, prague, soccnx, vi, video by Wannes Rams

Next to be highlighted is a session from our Sponsors track delivered by Adam Brown. Adam is Senior Executive Director at ISW, one of the largest IBM business partners in Australia and developers of the award-winning Kudos portfolio of add-on solutions for IBM Connections.

His session brief was as follows:

We love Activities in Connections. They are awesome! Working together on projects and leveraging Social Tools is a very powerful way of working. However some Activities can get BIG and sometimes users need to look at their tasks or organise the Activity slightly differently. Sometimes users don’t need to see everything that is going on but just one part. Sometimes it would be easier if Activities was more VISUAL!
Come and see the awesomeness of Kudos Boards for IBM Connections! Imagine a visual way of viewing and managing your Connections Activities. Personalized, Visual, Productive, FAST – Kudos Boards has been designed to do this and a whole lot more, all seamlessly integrated into the IBM Connections interface. If you think that Kudos Badges was designed well, then Kudos Boards will rock your socks 🙂

Here’s the session – it’s in full HD and runs for 20 minutes, so make it full screen and enjoy!

Make your Connections Activities Rock!!! introducing Kudos Boards for IBM Connections, Adam Brown from the Social Connections VI channel, by Social Connections.

05/082014

Watch Oliver Heinz at Social Connections VI: ‘A day in the life of ICS Community Management’

News community, connections, event, ibmchampions, ibmcnx, ics, inotes, oliheinz, prague, soccnx, vi, video by Wannes Rams

Next to be highlighted is a session from our Management track delivered by Oliver Heinz of IBM. Oliver is the ICS Community Manager and is responsible for the IBM Champions for collaboration and social business.

His session brief was as follows:

Join Oliver for a day in the life of ICS Community Management, learning about different type of communities and stakeholders, different communication channels and the skills and tools that are helpful to get the job done.

We’ll talk about the many ways of how you can get involved in the vibrant ICS community via user groups, online communities and social media and how SocialBizUG.org can help you to get started.

You will also learn how you can apply best practices and lessons learned to get the most out of your existing or planned IBM Connections deployment and maximize participation and engagement of your own Community.

Here’s the session – it’s in full HD and runs for 29 minutes, so make it full screen and enjoy!

A day in the life of ICS Community Management, Oliver Heinz from the Social Connections VI channel, by Social Connections.

01/082014

Watch Luis Suarez at Social Connections VI: ‘From Adaptation to Engagement’

News connections, domino, elsua, event, future-of-work, ibmcnx, inotes, prague, soccnx, socialmail, vi, video by Wannes Rams

Next to be highlighted is our closing keynote delivered by Luis Suarez of Change Agents Worldwide. Luis Suarez is a Chief Emergineer and People Enabler.

Their session brief was as follows:

In a business world changing at a rampant pace, where both speed & innovation matter more than ever before, where complexity & uncertainty are now the new normal & where only 13% of today’s corporate workforce is engaged at work, one cannot but wonder what’s the future of work eventually.
The traditional hierarchical, top-down driven business world (rather strict, competitive, bureaucratic & political) keeps failing to meet up with today’s customers’ needs & expectations. Work is changing though & the new opportunity is how do we best cope, manage & facilitate that change. Key concepts like co-creation, transparency, open knowledge sharing, cooperation, collaboration, authenticity, trust. etc. are becoming the new postnormal of how work gets done. It’s no longer top down mandated, but networked inspired & distributed. It’s hyperconnected, smarter, more scalable, as powerful & influential networks become the new funnel of getting work done.

Here’s the session – it’s in full HD and runs for 52 minutes, so make it full screen and enjoy!

From Adaptation to Engagement, Luis Suarez from the Social Connections VI channel, by Social Connections.

All the main tent sessions from the first day of Social Connections VI are now available on the event channel, and the remainder of the sessions will be published over the next few weeks (thats the downside of HD-quality recordings – they take a while to upload!).

31/072014

Watch Kramer Reeves and HP Dalen at Social Connections VI: ‘The IBM Social Mail Roadmap’

News connections, domino, event, ibmcnx, inotes, prague, soccnx, socialmail, vi, video by Wannes Rams

Next to be highlighted is a main tent session delivered by Kramer Reeves and Hans Petter Dalen, both from IBM. Kramer is Director of Product Management and is based in the US, whilst HP is European Sales Executive, IBM Messaging Solutions.

Their session brief was as follows:

With the announcement of IBM Mail Next, IBM has a wide selection of social mail clients, including IBM Notes and the mail interface in IBM Connections. Each are serving their own purpose and this session will take you through the various use cases and which option you should consider in order to accelerate your social business journey by moving adoption of social capabilities to your collaboration client. The session will also cover IBMs social mail roadmaps and how a fully integrated collaboration client will help you realise your company’s full creative potential and save you time and money through smarter collaboration. There will be plenty of interaction and cool demos.

Here’s their session – it’s in full HD and runs for 52 minutes, so make it full screen and enjoy!

The IBM Social Mail Roadmap, Kramer Reeves & Hans Petter Dalen from the Social Connections VI channel, by Social Connections.

All the main tent sessions from the first day of Social Connections VI are now available on the event channel, and the remainder of the sessions will be published over the next few weeks (thats the downside of HD-quality recordings – they take a while to upload!).

30/072014

Watch Luis Benitez at Social Connections VI: ‘IBM Connections “Next” is Here – Why It Matters!’

News connections, event, ibmcnx, prague, soccnx, vi, video by Wannes Rams

First to be highlighted here is (of course) our keynote speaker, Luis Benitez who should need no introduction as one of IBM’s Connections product managers, Connect demo god and well known blogger!

Speaking just prior to Connections 5.0 shipping, this was his brief:

This new release of IBM Connections brings new capabilities such as the ability to bring customers and partners into the conversation, work with your files offline, amazing new mobile capabilities, and more. Learn the significance of this release and why you shouldn’t wait to upgrade.

IBM Connections “Next” is Here – Why It Matters!, Luis Benitez (IBM) from the Social Connections VI channel, by Social Connections.

All the main tent sessions from the first day of Social Connections VI are now available on the event channel, and the rest of the sessions will be published over the next few weeks (thats the downside of HD-quality recordings – they take a while to upload!). Thanks to our good friends at H2Omaniacs for recording and producing the recordings – I’m sure you’ll agree they’ve done a wonderful job!

08/042014

Social Connections VI: Five reasons to attend

News connections, prague, soccnx, socialconnections by Wannes Rams

Social Connections VI is less than 70 days away and I’m personally getting very excited for the conference. I’ve got June 16th and 17th circled on my calendar in bright red!

People have asked me “What is Social Connections?” and “Why should I attend?”; so I wanted to share five of my top reasons why I’m attending Social Connections VI. As an IBM Champion and being on the Social Connections team, some might say I’m a little biased…but, don’t forget I’m also an IBM Customer!

Sponsors – How cool is it that this conference is completely FREE to attend? Yeah, that’s pretty cool…thanks a lot to our sponsors for that; but that’s not the only reason that I feel having our sponsors at the event is a benefit. I love that I can sit and talk directly with these experts who have developed solutions for IBM Connections. These discussions are not a sale pitch. They get me thinking out of the box about what’s possible with my IBM Connections deployment and how to make my life supporting IBM Connections easier.
Speakers – Wow. In the past, Social Connections has had some great speakers. No offense to the excellent people who have spoken previously, but this year is shaping up to be, hands down, the best list of speakers we have ever had. Seriously awesome. And with the more intimate atmosphere of Social Connections, all of these speakers are available and willing to talk to you after their sessions. Or if you missed a session because you were attending another you can always catch the speaker during a break or the evening reception to discuss.
Content – Professional, passionate presentations and discussions that tell the story of real world experiences with IBM Connections. Solutions to the problems you are facing right now in your own organizations. Ideas that make your IBM Connections deployment better, that can increase adoption and give your organization a higher ROI with the tool. What else could you ask for? I can’t think of much more. (The agenda is almost complete and will be published soon!)
Attendees – You will have the opportunity to network with with other experienced IBM Connections users and leaders in the social business world. The best part is that this goes beyond the engaging discussions you have at the conference. You will leave the event with relationships and the ability to continue the discussion. Having a network to reach out to and bounce ideas off months after the conference has been one of the biggest benefits of my previous attendance of Social Connections.
Location – Let’s face it…even if you are local to the Czech Republic, who doesn’t want any excuse to travel to Prague?! Prague is listed on countless “Top 10 cities to visit in Europe” lists. If the pictures and the write ups do it half the justice, we really are in for a treat. Maximize your travel investment and come early on the weekend or stay a couple days after. I know I’m hoping I can arrange a little bit of tourist time.

I really hope to see you at Social Connections VI on June 16th & 17th! It’s going to be a great event (as always)!

Click here to register!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly:

on Twitter – @oneillbp311
on LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/in/oneillbp311

Or start a public discussion:

LinkedIn Group – Social Connections – The IBM Connections User Group
Facebook Group – Social Connections – The IBM Connections User Group
Google+ Community – IBM Connections Professionals & Power Users

20/092013

Social Connections VI – the next chapter…

News connections, event, norway, soccnx, social, sweden, zurich by Wannes Rams

Social Connections V was a blast!

Beautiful city (Zurich), great turnout (180), fabulous sessions (26), wonderful sponsors (10) and much much more besides…

We still have lots of great content and photos to share from the event, so look out for those over the next few weeks as the team recover from their post-event stresses and strains and plan for the next event.

Next event?!

Yep, you heard it right… We’ll be back for yet another fantastic Social Business and IBM Connections user group very soon.

When?

After five events in just under two years (it seems crazy just saying that), the team has taken a well earned break and is now planning for the next event to take place in April 2014.

This has given us an extra four months or so to pull together the details for an even bigger and better event next time. This will ideally allow us to grow the agenda into a multi-day event and thus give everyone involved even better bang for their buck (or in the case of attendees, even better value for their free registration fee)!

Where?

The million dollar question!

After events in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Switzerland, there has been talk of heading to locations in Europe or even to the USA. The team are keeping all options open for the future, but after much consideration, have decided that the immediate plans are to continue to grow and sustain our wonderful European community.

We are therefore looking for an event location in Sweden or Norway for Social Connections VI. Finding a classy location with good travel links that can accommodate up to 250 attendees, can host 3 or 4 sessions simultaneously and have space for sponsors and networking is not as easy as it may seem, particularly for a self-funded user group!

Therefore, we are definitely open to suggestions! We have already had some great ideas flow in over Twitter, but if you know of a great location that we might be able to use for Social Connections VI, please do let us know. Likewise, if your organisation would be interested in helping us to organise the event in your neighbourhood then we would love to hear from you!

Who?

As you may be aware, Social Connections is run by a team of experienced, passionate, knowledgeable but slightly mad volunteers! As attendees to previous events would hopefully attest, this group manages to put on large, well-organised events that would put many a professional events organisation to shame.

This event will see some significant changes in this team (more details later) so we are on the lookout for more willing folks to step forward to join the team, particularly those native to Scandinavia. We can promise lots of laughs, strong coffee, camaraderie, in-jokes and lengthy Skype chats. In return, there’ll be no pay, but you’ll get to be part of one of the best teams and events around! If you’re interested, get in touch by email or reach out to Stuart, Sharon or Simon over one of the many social networks.

What next?

Look out for more details on socialconnections.info, on Twitter and in the LinkedIn community. We hope to have some date and location details for you very soon.

03/062013

Social Connections V – Less than four weeks to go!

News connections, soccnx, social, zurich by Wannes Rams

We’re into the home straight! Social Connections V takes place at the end of this month, and it’s full steam ahead as the team pulls together the last of the logistics, prints banners and brochures, confirms bookings for buses and dinners, orders beer for the SpeedSponsoring and much more! Whilst we still have a few spaces available, registration is fast filling up, so if you’d like to attend this fantastic event in the beautiful city of Zurich, there really is no time like the present – register now!

Remember, thanks to our sponsors, it is absolutely free to attend…

With that in mind, we thought it was worth bringing you up to speed on some updates:

The full agenda has been published, along with event timings, sessions and speaker names
The event reception has been announced for all registered attendees, with a fabulous dinner arranged on edge of Lake Zurich (there are less than ten spaces available for the evening event, so if you haven’t registered yet, do so now!)
Local hotels are filling up fast. Our recommendations are the Novotel, Ibis, Ibis Budget, and 25 Hours. More details available on the event FAQ.
The ‘Doing Business with IBM Connections’ Masterclass with Michael Sampson workshop has been announced and is attracting great attention. This TagItOn session is a chargeable day’s event taking place at the same venue on the day before Social Connections V, allowing attendees to maximise the value they receive from their trip to Zurich. Michael’s new book on attaining personal productivity and business value from Connections has just shipped, and this masterclass will lead attendees through the core topics covered, including using the platform for managing meetings, holding discussions, running projects, making decisions and more. Of course, the greatest benefits of attending will likely be the opportunities for discussion and learning directly from Michael and others on the day

With this in mind, we have a fantastic opportunity for you…

At close of play this Friday we will draw one lucky person from our list of registered Social Connections V attendees to be awarded a complementary ticket to the masterclass (worth €449), and another 3 to receive 50% discounts (€224.50). All you need to do to be included is to be registered for the main Social Connections V event. Should the winners already be registered for the masterclass, we will of course honour their discounts and refund the difference.

So, if you’re like to attend the biggest and best IBM Connections event this summer, or to learn from one of the true gurus of social collaboration, you know what to do… Register now!

We’ll see you there!